Maps of Music

Jealousy (1991)

Where the lyrics of Jealousy take you, and where it was really made.

Yoshiki was outvoted on where to record, so the album was made in Los Angeles, far from the band's home in Japan.

Key places

Recording at Complex Studio in Los Angeles (1991)

Recording site Complex Studio — The album was recorded from December 1990 to June 1991 at several studios, and Complex Studio in Los Angeles is one of them. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Recording in the Studio City area (1991)

Recording site Studio City — Studio City is listed among the recording locations for the album, and the point marks the Los Angeles neighborhood rather than a single building. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Jealousy: third studio album by Japanese heavy metal band X Japan, then known as simply X
• Released 1 July 1991 by Sony, the band's second major-label release
• Best-selling album of the band, with more than one million copies sold
• Topped the Oricon chart and stayed on the chart for 50 weeks
• Last album released under the name X, before the change to X Japan
• Last album to feature Taiji on bass; he was replaced by Heath

Background

• Previous album Blue Blood (1989) reached number six on Oricon and charted for more than 100 weeks
• Blue Blood sold over half a million copies
• X received the Grand Prix New Artist of the Year award at the 4th Japan Gold Disc Awards in 1990
• At a press conference after the Rose & Blood Tour finale in May 1990, Taiji said X would make the first Japanese album to succeed internationally
• Taiji also said all five members would work together this time, unlike Blue Blood, which relied heavily on Yoshiki
• Sony let the band choose anywhere to go; Yoshiki visited Paris and London, while the other members chose Los Angeles
• Yoshiki was outvoted when the band decided where to record

Recording

• X left Japan on 24 November 1990 to begin recording in Los Angeles
• Recording ran from December 1990 to June 1991 at several studios, including Complex Studio and Sound Castle Studio
• Yoshiki composed and wrote four songs; Hide composed three songs with lyrics; Taiji composed two; Pata contributed his only song in the catalogue
• Taiji's Desperate Angel and Voiceless Screaming were written with lyrics by vocalist Toshi
• Voiceless Screaming was written while Yoshiki's health was worsening and the band needed more songs
• Silent Jealousy is structured like Kurenai and includes a short excerpt of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake
• Stab Me in the Back is one of X's oldest songs, written in 1986

Cover

• Front cover concept credited to Screaming Mad George and Yoshiki
• Mask and make-up credited to Screaming Mad George

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• X Japan is a Japanese rock band from Chiba, formed in 1982 by drummer and pianist Yoshiki and lead vocalist Toshi.
• The group began as a predominantly power/speed metal band with heavy symphonic elements and later moved toward a progressive sound with an emphasis on ballads.
• The band is widely credited as one of the pioneers of visual kei, a Japanese movement comparable to Western glam.

Members

• Current members are Yoshiki (drums, piano), Toshi (lead vocals), Pata (guitar) and Sugizo (guitar, violin).
• Hide, who died in 1998, and bassist Heath, who died in 2023, are still considered members by the band.

Career

• The band released its debut album Vanishing Vision on Yoshiki's own Extasy Records in 1988 and reached the main Oricon chart as the first independent band to do so.
• Blue Blood (1989) brought breakthrough success, and Jealousy (1991) debuted at number one.
• The group changed its name from X to X Japan in 1992 and disbanded after its Tokyo Dome farewell show in 1997.
• The band reunited in 2007, toured internationally, and released the We Are X soundtrack in 2017.
• The band has sold over 30 million records.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Jealousy is generally positively received
• Mamoru Goto of Re:minder wrote that the album shows the distinct charisma of each member of X
• Goto noted that most songs were written by members other than Yoshiki, giving the album much variety
• Goto called Silent Jealousy as perfectly encapsulating the essence of the band
• Goto found Love Replica to be the record's biggest surprise, opening with industrial-rock-like metallic noises
• Music writer Takuya Ito noted that each member's songwriting gave the album more variety than X's previous works
• Alexey Eremenko of Allmusic called the album a nice document of pre-grunge heavy music

Reappraisal

• Eremenko rated the album three and a half out of five stars
• Eremenko concluded that the album is a pretty diverse record despite its hair metal backbone
• Eremenko criticized Desperate Angel for becoming an annoyingly memorable heavy pop hit
• Jealousy was ranked number 7 on Bounce's 2009 list of 54 Standard Japanese Rock Albums
• In 2018, readers and professional musicians voted Jealousy the sixth best album in the history of hard rock and heavy metal in We Rock magazine's Metal General Election

Records

• Debuted at number one on the Oricon chart, with 612,920 copies sold in the third counting week of July 1991
• Sold 828,000 copies by the end of 1991, 12th-best-selling album of the year
• Certified million by the RIAJ after 50 weeks on the chart
• Ranked 62nd-best-selling album of 1992, with 285,430 copies sold
• Oricon counted 1.113 million copies sold in 2007

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Sony let the band go anywhere they wanted, and Yoshiki visited Paris and London while the other members chose Los Angeles
• When members returned to Japan in June, 500 Japan Self-Defence Forces members were at the airport to control the crowd
• Voiceless Screaming was written when Yoshiki's health worsened and the band needed more songs
• Jealousy was the last album to feature Taiji on bass, who was replaced by Heath
• A Blu-spec CD2 version remastered by Bob Ludwig was released on 27 July 2016
• The album is one of two X singles era works where the title song did not appear on the album: Standing Sex was released in October 1991 without the title song on the album

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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